• Feature: How to be a DIY cook by Matthew Evans.

They may be known as the ''nanna'' skills, but new generations are discovering the gentle arts of pickling, smoking, bottling and preserving.

Chef, writer and TV farmer Matthew Evans says skills born of necessity have become something we now choose to do. ''Some do it because they believe it is better for them, for their family and for their soul,'' Evans says. He suspects a distrust of of modern food drives many.

John Roy says younger do-it-yourself cooks have boosted business 30 per cent in recent years for his company, the preserving and bottling supplier Fowlers Vacola, which was founded in 1915. ''The voices on the phone are certainly younger,'' says Roy of the customers who call for advice. He attributes the growth to the rise in both backyard vegetable patches and farmers markets.

''There's something about the purity and honest of being able to cook, keep and use something later on, whether it's jams, or tomato sauce,'' says Roy.

Chef Matt Germanchis of Melbourne's Pei Modern restaurant is teaching a class in butter making as part of the first The Age Good Food Month presented by Citi in November. He says there's a huge sense of enjoyment in creating butter for home cooks, ''because it's awesome, quite easy, it's a product that everyone uses daily.''

Classes in old-school culinary skills feature among nearly 350 events being held in Good Food Month's Instant Expert workshops. The highlight of Good Food Month will be the launch of Night Noodle Markets on November 18 in Alexandra Gardens. The full program is inside today's paper.